Shia cleric Maulana Kalbe Jawwad met governor Ram Naik here on Sunday and requested him to sack minister for minority welfare Mohd Azam Khan, whom he held responsible for the police canecharge on Shia procession which was taken out after Alvida namaz on Friday (Quds day) demanding arrest of all those persons booked by CB-CID in the 2012 Shia Wakf Board corruption case.

Jawwad handed over a memorandum of his demands to the governor. The cleric sought the governor's intervention in the case accusing Azam Khan of trying to reinstate corrupt elements in the Wakf Board. He has also asked the governor to communicate sentiments of the Shia community to the President

Pranab Mukherjee informing him that Khan's conduct has not been as per the Constitutional norms.

Later, addressing mediapersons the cleric said that Shias were taking out a peaceful protest on Friday when police stopped them near Shaheed Smarak and cane charged them. He alleged that the police action was pre-planned and it was done at the behest of Azam Khan.

"All agitations led by me in the past have always been peaceful and without any violence but this time some policemen in plain clothes started pelting stones which led to angry retaliation by the agitators", he alleged. He has demanded immediate sacking of district magistrate and police chief of Lucknow for ordering cane charge on the processionists in which one person died and several persons got injured.

He said that he along with other members of the Shia community were fighting to save the Shia wakf properties and have demanded arrest of those persons who have been named in the FIR on charges of corruption by the CB-CID in 2012.

He said that he has given a day's time to the state government for the arrest of all persons named in the FIR by the CB-CID, failing which Shias would lay siege of Azam Khan's house in Lucknow and hold demonstrations outside SP offices all over the state.

Racting to the Shia cleric's allegations and protests, Azam Khan told reporters in Rampur that anyone attempting to take law in his own hands shall be dealt with firmly.

Meanwhile, litterrateur Ishrat Rizvi Lakhnavi has refused to take award from the Urdu Academy in protest against the canecharge made on the processionists.